Be forewarned: The writer of this blog is an extremely cynical, snarky, pro-US, secular, libertarian, disgruntled sandmonkey. If this is your cup of tea, please enjoy your stay here. If not, please sod off

Okay Alaa, but it accomplishes nothing. Every parliamntarian will go down to his district and force people to vote in order to get renominated in the november elections. They will get enough names and numbers to make it legitimate and it's all over. The whole "it's not legitimate so we are not participating"argument is logical, but it's also a loser's creed.It's like saying we can't win so we might as well not play.

No, wrong.

They should play. They should mobolize those they could, even if they would go in and put in an invalid ballot so that their names wouldn't be used in a forgery. You think the government cares that the judges aren't happy? Hell, it's better this way. Once the election is over, without enough popular support- large numbers of people- that would decry it as a fraud, no one will care and things will stay the same and the world will declare the elections legitimate whether you like it or not.

I don;t know. I get where u guys are coming from, but non-particpation is not the way to win this one, as it is never the way to win anything.

I hate Muslim extremists, but I am not too worried about this party. I actually think it is a healthy way to incorporate moderates in the political process. Add to this that the judge was Christian, it has Christian members and women and we can see that this is the type of party that will respect minority rights and diversity of opinion.

Never boycott an election. You are giving your voice away when you do.

The Sunni in Iraq boycotted, and now they want into the government more than anything. Fortunately for them, their new government is open hearted and is allowing them to participate in the writing of the new constitution even though they through away the right to participate.

An electoral boycott is close to a "nuclear option"; it is intended to force a crisis, to bring things to a head. In Iran, the boycotters knew they would end up with some variety of overt conservative, but preferred that to the pseudo-reformist fig leaf candidate. Now, the gloves are off and the actions of the government are open, naked, and strengthening the opposition daily. But there may be a bloodbath or ten before it's over.

So in Egypt, decide if you want to "force the moment to its crisis", or prefer to try to subvert the corruptors.